Contrapuntal Lines
by MoonDancer1
Summary: Incoherent suggestion of slash. I don't even know what this is.


Disclaimer: I own Harry Potter. I am also a focused, well-rounded individual. ^_^ You decide if that's true.  
  
  
  
  
  
Contrapuntal Lines  
  
  
  
There are many things Draco Malfoy dislikes.  
  
(He will never use a word as strong as hate, because hate infers an emotional intensity equal to love. And he whose earliest education centered around self-serving aloofness, he who has long since perfected the faultless veneer of his countenance, avoids hate. Mock, scorn, contempt - those are fine, because they signify the feelings of the superior to the subordinate, the aristocrat to the slave. Indifference, the true counterpart of love, is to be thrived for. Hate should be avoided like the plague.)  
  
The expansive list, however, does not include music. He holds a position of contemptuous indifference for most forms of frivolity, of course, but music he tolerates. When he was a child it struck his mother's fancy to employ a private piano tutor for him, a squat, pompous man in a bowtie whom he hated at first sight. But even then he was captivated by the cool ivory keys of the grand heirloom piano, the stark simplicity of white on black, the logic of the cadences and chords and inversions. Everything summed up to perfection. He approved of perfection, still does. By the third lesson he threw out the teacher and taught himself the rest of the way, poring over books and going through finger drills, until he was as good as any. Better.  
  
Chopin and Schubert he doesn't care much for, and Mozart he finds purely elementary. Bach, in his opinion, is the ultimate musician, the true mastermind behind the art. Sometimes he does nothing, just stare at the sheet music, the laden staffs, marveling at the genius of it all.  
  
He likes Bach because it is math transcended, because if you take it apart you would end up with perfectly proportional voices. He likes Bach because it is no-nonsense brilliance laid out like a map. He likes Bach because it is predictable in its elegance, simple in its complexity, all-consuming in its intricacy. He likes the preludes because the elaborate polyphony demands every iota of your concentration and wiped everything else off your mind, until nothing matters, is worth mattering, except your drawing out the music. He likes Bach because it is the only thing demanding enough to envelope him completely, banish his whirling thoughts with its methodical rhythm. He likes Bach because it brings him down to some fundamental level of contemplation, calculating, counting, coordinating, creating. He likes Bach because it whisks him away from life.  
  
When he arrived at Hogwarts he discovered the woodwind wing, a sort of miniature imitation church hall with vaulted ceilings and dusty stained- glass windows that contained a curious collection of instruments, some of them decidedly eccentric. He was pleased by the piano, and visits often.  
  
*  
  
Harry Potter loves the night.  
  
(He taught himself to use that word, love, as often as he can. In his muggle life he was dealt objects of affection few and far in between, and now he reaches out with a quiet fervor for lovable things. Perhaps he is afraid, deep inside, that one day these things will be taken away, or that he will be taken from them, that the scythe which left its mark on him will return for one more blow. So he waits, with a imperceptible latent dread, and loves for the lost time, the time that might be lost still.)  
  
With night, it is the silence, the freedom, the anonymity that accompanies darkness. It is the knowledge that the bustling hoards that trampled the halls by day are, for the moment, reduced to mere effigies behind closed doors, unaware and still and lost to dreams. It is the supple shadows that nestle in the corners of the familiar corridors, the house banners and colours seeming trivial for a while. And the music, which comes unbidden sometimes, that he closes his eyes and listens to, more concerned about song than source. When the silence grows too loud, the shadows too dark, the music sustains his privacy but banishes the isolation.  
  
He never has a destination on his midnight escapades; he simply wanders about, soaking in the small things. The small portrait of his dad, mockingly debonair in a lacquered plaque commemorating the class of '79; a display of championship-winning snitches, all of them worn with use, a few wings stirring softly at times; the way the ceiling of the West wing transforms subtly at certain points, undetectable by the casual eye, fading from rich heather to magenta to primrose pink to lightest-tinged yellow to pale aquamarine, until you realized that it is a vista of the sunset. And the music, of course.  
  
Yes, he loves the night.  
  
*  
  
  
  
Draco Malfoy dislikes flying.  
  
(He knows that a long time ago he had felt differently, but that was then and this is now.)  
  
He dislikes like not having his feet on the ground. He dislikes the feeling of being owned by the world, preferring it the other way around. He dislikes being at the mercy of the elements, or being at the mercy of anything, for that matter. He dislikes being so small in that big a space, although he will never say that out loud.  
  
But now he is up here, going much higher than he was used to and ever so conscious of his shortage of breath, eyes fixed on the spiraling dot in the distance. It was all Hootch's fault - if she hadn't looped him for this stupid errand to bring down some renegade idiot, he would be reading at the dorm now.  
  
He grips the handle and tries not think about ozone levels.  
  
*  
  
Harry Potter loves the sky.  
  
(When he was a kid he dreamt about flying, not on a broomstick but on wings of a bird. It was always a small bird that could slide under the gap under his closet and glide out of a window. He dreamt of going higher and higher until Privet lane became the squat, dull boxes, and -  
  
Here the dream always ended, because he didn't know anywhere else to go.)  
  
He loves the precarious equilibrium, the constant throb of danger, the quicksilver adrenaline coursing through his veins. He loves the way the world seemed during flight, the way doing the impossible made all the other impossibilities seem one step closer. He loves the unequalled freedom and control. He loves the addition of dimensions that transcends him from an earthbound creature prodding far under the sun. He loves the giddy euphoria that defined flight, being drunk on the cool silken champagne of the cloud- misted air.  
  
Now he flies at his favourite time, twilight, where nothing is constant in the shifting spectrum of the sky. He glides, dazzled by the myriad of colours that melt into existence, a transient aurora. Soon he knows that he will have to go down - a fact that seems trite next to the panorama of beauty.  
  
*  
  
"You will be nothing less than perfect, Draco, because that is what all Malfoys are," Lucius Malfoy had said.  
  
Draco Malfoy did not believe.  
  
*  
  
"You will always be lacking, Harry, because you are a Potter," Vernon Dursley had said.  
  
Harry Potter did not believe.  
  
*  
  
Draco Malfoy detests losers more than he detests losing, but he is by far more terrified of the latter.  
  
(When he was a child his father branded penny-sized marks on his forearm whenever he failed to meet expectations. It was painful, but more so was the shame.)  
  
He plays the music to calm himself down, but the piece he chooses has too many rests and crashes to a halt in mid-song when he slams his fists down on the keys.  
  
*  
  
Harry Potter always wants to get ahead, because he feels his past rising like a tidal wave behind -  
  
He hears the single clanging chord of pain and is running, running towards the source he has always taken pains to leave alone.  
  
*  
  
Harry Potter rushes upwards because the only other direction is down.  
  
*  
  
Draco Malfoy shuts his eyes and prays that his pedestal holds true.  
  
*  
  
There is no room for surprise in Harry Potter's blazing rainforest gaze when he yanks open the door. Nor is there movement or sound from the occupant inside, not even when Harry Potter steps in and the door swings shut behind him.  
  
*  
  
Draco Malfoy hates (loves, isn't it the same?) Harry Potter. He hates his righteousness and his synthetic sympathy and his loneliness that keeps him awake at night.  
  
*  
  
Harry Potter hates (more than he'd ever loved, or is this how it's really supposed to feel?) Draco Malfoy. He hates his vindictiveness and his fabricated distance and his loneliness that keeps him awake at night.  
  
*  
  
black white sky ground love hate spring winter fire ice whirling gray life need autumn smoke -  
  
*  
  
In the silence that follows a shy note emerges, tentative and soft, and tastes the air. Then the muted music resumes, hiatus forgotten. A prelude. Bach.  
  
*  
  
Two contradictory natures, two contrasting colours, two contrapuntal lines -  
  
One perfect harmony. 


End file.
